Twenty-One
“You want to what?”
Standing in the midst of Blakeborough’s study the next morning, Jeremy winced at the man’s incredulous tone. Perhaps he shouldn’t have sprung the matter so abruptly, but it was too late to go back now. “I said, I want to marry Yvette. If she’ll have me.”
For the first time since Jeremy had met him, the earl looked completely confounded. “Marry her. You want to marry my sister.” Blakeborough excelled at stating the obvious.
“Surely you’ve noticed that she and I get along very well.”
The earl, who’d taken a seat behind his desk when they’d first entered, now leaned forward to stare at him over it. “Yes, but well enough to marry? Have you even asked her?”
Thunderation. He could hardly admit he’d asked her more than once after he’d made love to her like a randy hound with no self-control. Or an ounce of sense.
“Not exactly.” Under the circumstances, he figured it was all right to shade the truth. “We’ve discussed the idea, but—”
“Have you? That comes as a surprise.” Blakeborough cast him a considering glance. “Is that why you’ve been gone these past few days? Trying to drum up the courage to ask her for her hand?”
Jeremy scowled. “Certainly not.”
“Hoping that absence would make her heart grow fonder, and she would agree to your proposal immediately upon your return?”
“Not that either,” he grumbled. “Damn it, Blakeborough, will you accept my offer or not? Assuming that she does, too.”
The earl snorted. “That’s an enormous assumption, old chap. She’s turned down three other suitors before you.”
“But I thought she’d never had . . . ”
Her words last night came to him. I haven’t had any decent offers of marriage . . . very little courting by respectable gentlemen who weren’t after my fortune.
Damn her. She’d had offers, just not “decent” ones from “respectable gentlemen.” His blood ran cold. What kind of proposals had she had?
“Were these other offers viable?” Jeremy asked.
“They were from gentlemen of good family and connections, if that’s what you mean.”
“That is not what I mean, and you know it.”
Blakeborough sighed. “Then no. Not viable. I probably would have refused them myself if matters had gone that far.” His tone hardened. “No fortune hunter or roué with a roving eye is going to marry my sister.”
Jeremy gritted his teeth. “I do hope you’re not including me in that description.”
“Should I?”
Bad enough he’d had to bare his soul to Yvette. Must he do it to Blakeborough, too? “No. I have a substantial fortune of my own, and I don’t have a roving eye.”
“Just a penchant for frequenting brothels.”
“Only because I use the women as models for my paintings.” That much he felt safe in revealing.
It gave him the satisfaction of seeing the earl flummoxed again. “Truly?”
“Yes. Ask Mrs. Beard herself if you don’t believe me.”
Blakeborough stiffened. “I hardly think that will be necessary. Although if I learn you’re lying to me, I will put an end to any talk of marriage at once, no matter what Yvette thinks about it.”
That gave Jeremy pause. “And have you done that before, put an end to talk of marriage heedless of her wishes? Or perhaps to save her from a particularly nasty suitor?”
The sudden guilty flush in the earl’s cheeks gave him away. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The hell you don’t. You knew about Ruston, didn’t you? You’re the one who sent him packing.”
Blakeborough jumped up in alarm. “How do you know of Ruston?”
“She told me.”
With a stunned look, the earl sank back into his chair. “Yvette told you about Ruston.”
“As I said, we get along very well.”
“It must be extremely well if she told you about that arse. I’m not sure even Knightford is aware of what Ruston attempted.”
That rather pleased Jeremy.
Blakeborough steepled his fingers in front of him. “What exactly did she tell you?”
“Everything, I think.” Jeremy eyed the man nervously. “Why, what do you know?”
“More than she realizes.”
“Aha, I was right! I told her you must have had a hand in putting an end to the ass’s blackmail, but she didn’t believe me.”
“No, she wouldn’t—not with the way things have always been between us.” Blakeborough’s expression darkened. “My sister sees me as the enforcer of rules, the petty dictator of Stoke Towers. She doesn’t understand that, thanks to our absent father and rogue of a brother, someone had to be in charge. And it fell to me.”
“She does realize that.”
“I don’t think so, or she would come to me with these things. She’s afraid I might restrict her freedom too much. Afraid of what I might do.” The earl’s voice turned regretful. “She’s afraid of me.”
“She’s not afraid of you. She’s afraid of disappointing you. It’s not the same.”
“She could never disappoint me.”
The fierce certainty in those words took Jeremy by surprise. He’d never seen Blakeborough show that much depth of feeling. “Then tell her that. She needs to hear it. For that matter, tell her the truth about your part in saving her from Ruston. Because right now, she thinks Samuel was her savior.” And that’s why she’s doing fool things like going to brothels looking for your nephew.
The earl cast him a pained glance. “Better that she think him her savior than that she know the truth. It would destroy her. They were close in their youth, so if she knew how he’d betrayed her . . .” He uttered a shuddering breath. “I couldn’t do that to her.”
An icy chill wracked Jeremy. “How did he betray her?”
Abruptly Blakeborough stood and stalked to the window, then back. “I only know what Samuel was willing to admit after I caught him attempting to arrange a hired chaise to carry Ruston and Yvette to Gretna Green. It was sheer luck that I was in Preston an hour before Ruston meant to run off with her.”
“Oh, God. That must have been after Samuel claimed he could do nothing to help Yvette, before he turned around and ‘saved’ the day.”
Edwin’s gaze grew murderous. “Probably. Fortunately, the chaise owner admitted the truth when I warned him I would report his participation to my father if he didn’t. He wasn’t fool enough to cross the earl’s heir. Everyone in Preston knew I ran things at the estate. So when Samuel wouldn’t say a word at first, the chaise owner admitted what Samuel and Ruston were planning.”
“To carry Yvette off . . . with her consent, of course, assuming she would have given in to the blackmail.”
“Ah, yes, the blackmail.” The earl’s face clouded over. “When pushed to the wall and threatened with a visit from our father, who’d already had enough of Samuel’s irresponsible behavior, my brother revealed that Ruston had sworn to destroy Yvette’s reputation if we didn’t let him marry her.” Blakeborough paused to shoot him an uncertain glance. “That is what you’re talking about, isn’t it?”
“I told you—she revealed everything to me.”
Reassured, Edwin went on. “My damned fool of a brother actually thought he could bully me, too. Said we had to let the elopement go on, or the family would be shamed. He even tried to weasel out of his own responsibility for the situation. He claimed he’d had no idea about Ruston’s intentions when inviting the man to Stoke Towers.”
“But you didn’t believe him.”
“Certainly not. The very fact that Samuel was arranging transportation for an elopement instead of coming to me to consult about the situation showed he was part of it.”
“So how did you put an end to it without involving Yvette?”
He clenched his hands at his sides. “I called his bluff. I told him I wasn’t letting her go anywhere with that arse. And if Samuel didn’t fix the problem, I’d tell Father my suspicions about his part in it. Since Father had already threatened to cut Samuel off entirely if the idiot took another wrong step, I gave Samuel a choice—regain Yvette’s garter and silence the footman, or lose everything.”
“And he agreed to set matters straight.”
“Oh, yes. He knew I was as good as my word. Once he’d done his part, I called Ruston in and informed him that my friends on the Navy Board would be appalled to learn that a naval officer was attempting to elope with a respectable female against her family’s wishes. I told him I could have him cashiered and make sure he never worked again.”
Jeremy blinked. “Remind me never to get on your bad side. You have connections I had no idea about.”
“I may have slightly exaggerated,” Blakeborough admitted with a smug smile. “But Ruston couldn’t know that. And in the process of defending himself, he blamed everything on Samuel. Said that Samuel had promised to encourage the match if Ruston promised to be generous to Samuel with Yvette’s money.”
“Did you believe Ruston?”
“Sadly, yes.”
“You truly think Samuel tried to sell her to his friend for a piece of the profits.” Jeremy gritted his teeth. “I hate this ass more and more by the day.”
“Which one?”
“Both, to be honest.”
Blakeborough nodded grimly. “I blame myself for Samuel’s behavior. I knew he was in debt to a number of fellows in the prizefighting set. I should have seen the signs, should have realized he was desperate.”
“How could you? Sometimes people can be very good at hiding what’s in their hearts.” He should know. “Besides, it was your father’s responsibility.”
“Of course.” As if realizing he’d already revealed more than he wished, he pasted a cool expression to his face. “If Father had been here, I’m sure he would have acted. And he did cut Samuel off eventually.”
“You could have told Yvette about Samuel’s perfidy then.”
A scowl knit Blakeborough’s brow. “You’ve heard how she talks about herself. If she’d known her own brother had sold her to his friend, all it would have done was make her feel even worse about her ability to attract men. At least after it was over, she was able to believe that the courtship part was real, even if the end result was bad.”
“Sadly, even that was denied her. She found out later that Ruston was a fortune hunter and put two and two together.”
The earl blinked. “She did? How?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, you can’t protect her from everything. She hears gossip like anyone else.”
Blakeborough dropped into a chair. “She never said anything.”
“Of course not. She was embarrassed and humiliated. And she didn’t know that you knew. She wanted to preserve her pride.”
He nodded absently. “That was another reason I didn’t reveal my part in it. So that she could preserve her pride.”
Jeremy rolled his eyes. Thanks to Blakeborough’s careful consideration of her feelings, she’d risked her reputation to find Samuel’s son. Perhaps he should tell the earl about that.
And have Blakeborough find out that Jeremy had been squiring her about town to brothels? That would hardly help the situation.
“You still haven’t answered my offer of marriage,” Jeremy said bluntly. He had to get over that hurdle first. Then he could persuade Yvette.
“Do you love her?” Blakeborough asked.
Thunderation, leave it to the earl to ask the one question he’d been dreading. He’d planned on lying, but faced with the man’s somber expression, he couldn’t. Because he knew it would get back to Yvette, and it would give her hope for things he couldn’t give her.
When Jeremy didn’t answer right away, Blakeborough added, “Look, I am the last person to say that marriage requires love. I’m not even sure I believe in the word—I rather suspect that it’s nothing more than a sly term for good old-fashioned lust. But I know my sister. And she expects to have some semblance of . . . whatever it is.”
“And I can give her that,” Jeremy said, relieved by Blakeborough’s practical approach. “Because I do feel a deep affection for her, I assure you. As long as that’s enough—”
A knock came at the study door, and Jeremy tensed.
“Excuse me a moment,” the earl murmured, then called out, “Come in.”
A footman entered. “My lord, there’s a woman here to see Mr. Keane.” The servant’s posture was rigid, and he wouldn’t look at Jeremy. “She claims that she’s his sister.”
Amanda was here? Oh, God, just what he didn’t need. Time had run out.
And why had the servant said that she’d claimed to be his sister?
Oh, right. Except for her blue eyes she looked nothing like Jeremy, who was the spitting image of their father. Amanda looked like their Irish mother, short and small, with a head of auburn hair and a dusting of freckles over her lightly tanned skin. No doubt the fellow thought Amanda was his mistress.
Of all the times for his sister to show up, why must it be now? The last thing he needed was Amanda reminding Yvette of all his shortcomings. Perhaps if he could whisk her away before Yvette awoke—
“Thank you,” Jeremy said to the footman, and headed for the door. “Is my mother with her?”
The footman’s expression faltered as he realized he’d stepped wrong. “Er . . . no. Miss Keane has come from town with a man who claims . . . who is another relation of yours. A Mr. Bonnaud?”
Oh, damn. Bonnaud was here, too. And that could mean only one thing—he’d learned something about Samuel’s by-blow. Otherwise, he would have waited until he saw Jeremy in London again to speak to him about it.
All the more reason to get to his relations before they got to Yvette. “Blakeborough, if you don’t mind . . .”
“No, of course not. I confess I’m rather eager to meet this ladder-climbing sister of yours.”
God help him. Jeremy hurried into the hall. At least he could count on Bonnaud to be discreet in front of the earl. He wasn’t so sure about Amanda.
“Jeremy!” she cried as he entered the foyer.
“It’s good to have you here,” he said as he bent to receive her kiss.
Despite the complications she presented, he was genuinely glad to see his little sister. It had been far too long. Which was why he pretended not to notice that she wore a typically unfashionable gray wool dress.
“Why didn’t Mother come with you?” he asked. When it dawned on him that their trip might not have gone well, his stomach flipped over. “She’s all right, isn’t she?”
“She has a cold and is exhausted from the trip, which is why we left her with Lady Zoe. Not that you care.” Amanda sniffed as she removed her antiquated bonnet and handed it to the footman. “We haven’t heard a word from you in months.”
He relaxed. If Mother had been seriously unwell, Amanda wouldn’t be chiding him. She’d be braining him with the nearest fire poker.
“Yes, I’ve been such a bad boy,” he teased her. “Traveling about and seeing the world and behaving as if I were a grown man. Fancy that.” He turned to Bonnaud. “Good to see you, too, sir.”
They shook hands, Bonnaud gazing at him with a meaningful look. But before Jeremy could figure out how to get the man alone, Blakeborough cleared his throat.
“Ah, yes,” Jeremy said. “Lord Blakeborough, may I present my sister, Miss Amanda Keane. Amanda, this is my friend, the Earl of Blakeborough.”
“Friend?” Amanda looked the earl over skeptically. “I thought he commissioned a portrait from you. That’s what Mr. Bonnaud said.”
Blakeborough blinked at her forthright words. “I . . . er . . . did indeed commission a portrait from your brother, but we’ve become friends in the meantime, haven’t we, Keane?”
“I hope so.” Because that would make the man more likely to accept Jeremy’s suit. Which he still hadn’t done.
“In fact,” Blakeborough added, “Keane and I are starting a gentlemen’s club together.”
“I thought you were returning to America any day now, Keane,” Bonnaud said warily.
“He is,” Amanda put in.
Assaulted from all sides, Jeremy stifled a groan.
The earl smoothly said, “I believe that my friend’s plans aren’t entirely settled. Eh, Keane?”
“Not entirely, no,” Jeremy said noncommittally.
“Well, regardless, I need to speak to you alone.” Bonnaud turned to the earl. “Is there a place where Keane and I can be private, my lord?”
“You may use my study,” Blakeborough said, though his eyes burned with curiosity. He smiled at Amanda. “Miss Keane, I’m sure you’re famished after your journey. I was just going in to breakfast myself, so if you’d care to join me . . .”
“I’d be honored, sir.” With a thin smile, Amanda took the arm he offered.
As she left, she cast a glance back at Jeremy. He knew that glance. It said, You’re in big trouble, mister. And handing me off to a handsome earl is not going to get you out of it.
One crisis at a time.
He gestured down the hall. “Shall we, Bonnaud?”
“Certainly.”
If Yvette slept as late as she usually did, perhaps he could settle everything before she even arose. Otherwise, between his irate sister, Samuel’s missing son, and an offer of marriage that still hadn’t been made properly, this had the potential to turn into quite the Shakespearean drama.